


Definitions and Whispers

by LyricaXXX (LyricaB)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Community: lewis_challenge, First Time, Fluff, M/M, Silly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 21:59:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyricaB/pseuds/LyricaXXX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time since the explosion, Robbie is glad James’ hearing isn’t quite back to normal, else James would hear the soft whispers—"fey", "fey", "fey"—following them across the village green.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definitions and Whispers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Lewis_Challenge Fright Fest 2014 for kat_lair’s prompt, “James is fey. Run with it.”

_Fey._

_Fey._

_Fey._

They whisper it behind James’ back, the carnival folk who’re working the harvest festival. 

Women in colorful costumes, the bookseller, the slip of a girl working the tea tent, the man selling sausages with peppers cooked until they’ve lost their color. Others, careful and suspicious, hanging back in the shadows. Even the townspeople, wandering through the small carnival at dusk, pick it up. The word follows them across the village green. 

No whisper interrupts the cries of the children as they run around and around, playing games and laughing, but Robbie sees them twisting their grubby fingers into a warding sign, imitating the adults.

For the first time since the explosion, Robbie’s glad James’ hearing isn’t up to par. 

He wouldn’t be so cavalier about it if the doctors hadn’t assured him, and James, and Innocent, that James’ hearing would return to normal in a day or so. If it wasn’t obvious that James’ hearing is improving. 

But it’s a good thing it’s not quite back to normal now. Else James would hear the soft whispers— _fey, fey, fey_ —from the shadows and the tents. 

Except, maybe one of the whispers is a bit too loud. Or maybe one of them says it when James is looking. (He’s very good at lip reading, Robbie has discovered.) James stiffens, throwing off the usual slouch of his narrow shoulders, his head going straight up atop his spine, and his complexion goes all pink. And his face goes all stiff, too, like his bread has landed butter side down. 

Robbie’s never seen him stand so upright. 

Robbie doesn’t know whether to acknowledge that he’s heard the whispers, too, or just pretend it’s not happening. 

James uses his new found height to avoid Robbie’s gaze, saving him from having to decide. 

Silently, Robbie curses small minded people everywhere. The kids, they’re just playing, imitating, but the adults should know better. 

But then he realizes he doesn’t really know what ‘fey’ means. He’s only assuming that it’s an insult. It’s one of those words that’s there, in his vocabulary. But he’s never used it. There’s a feel to it, but now that he’s pressed, he can’t really offer up a definition. Not now that he needs one, when it’s being whispered about his sergeant. 

He starts to ask James, but James’ hearing has taken a turn for the worse, or so he would have Robbie believe. He strides away, shoulders and head set in a prim, straight line. 

Robbie’s damned glad to be done quickly with the interview of the local farmer, found just where the local constable said he would be, loitering near the pub tent. The farmer seems sincere when he answers their questions, though he keeps eyeing James, who hovers at Robbie’s elbow, squinting as if it will help him bring the man’s slightly slurred voice into better focus. 

Robbie wouldn’t mind a pint himself, but even more than he wants a taste of the local brew, he wants James clear of the curious glances and twisting fingers. 

Back on the road, James pulls over at a pub on the edge of the village to get him a coffee. As soon as he’s out of the car and out of sight, Robbie pulls out his cell phone and fumbles his way through calling up the internet. Looks up the word ‘fey.’ Finds...

1\. marked by an otherworldly air or attitude  
2\. fated to die; doomed to die  
3\. able to see into the future  
4\. fairylike

And, of course, they have to have meant ‘otherworldly’, didn’t they? Because isn’t that just the perfect word for James? For his gawky, yet strangely graceful, quirky self. 

Though ‘fairylike’ is an interesting definition. Or faerie, as some like to spell it, according to the tiny, barely readable type in his palm. (If they keep making the damn phones smaller and smaller, one of these days, he isn’t going to be able to read anything on the screen at all.) 

But James as a fairy? He can see it. Or he could, if he believed in such. ‘A damn big fairy,’ he thinks, grinning. But he can see it. 

He doesn’t believe ‘able to see into the future’, and he won’t even contemplate ‘doomed to die’. First, it’s just stupid, isn’t it? Everybody’s doomed to die. And if James was doomed to die, he had the perfect opportunity just two days ago. Second, if he could see into the future, surely he’d have come out of that door faster. Or he wouldn’t have gone in at all. 

Robbie shudders as he remembers the explosion. Loud, loud sound, thunder shut up in a box. Fire blossoming like something alive out of all the openings of the building. James just coming through the big double doors, caught in a blooming flower of red and orange flame, body picked up and tossed forward like he weighed nothing. 

He remembers James flying, landing, rolling across the ground as he landed. His heart remembers the painful stuttering that didn’t right itself until he’d run to James and felt the steady, thrumming pulse in James’ neck. He remembers his relief when James sat up on his own. When he submitted to Robbie turning him and prodding him, finding only cuts and scrapes and a bruise or two, evidenced when James finally protested, “Ow, Sir!” too loudly and pushed him away to cover his ears. ‘Ringing,’ he’d said, again too loudly. 

And since Robbie’s ears were ringing, too, even as far away as he’d been, he could understand when James likened it to the bells of Oxford taking up residence in his skull. 

The phone, annoyed at the pressure of his fingers on the wrong button, bleeps at him. Robbie starts and finds himself sitting, staring out the windscreen at nothing, with his hand over his heart. 

Then James comes back, juggling cups of hot coffee and sweet rolls, and he hurries to put the phone away. 

The sun is half gone behind the horizon, and as James pulls out onto the road, Robbie says ‘Home, James,’ in the hope that it will loosen James’ jaw into a smile. 

But it doesn’t. And several minutes later, James is still stiff and silent and awkward, clutching the steering wheel, coffee and roll untouched, and staring straight ahead. 

Seems kind of silly for James to be so upset about strangers saying he’s odd. He is odd, and it’s not like James doesn’t know it about himself, or know that other people see it. But maybe it’s only because Robbie saw. It’s one thing to know that people think you’re odd, but another to have your guv’nor witness them whispering it. 

Robbie puts his hand on James’ shoulder and squeezes gently. Says, “James...” 

The muscles under his fingers are so tense, they’re like iron. Not a good word to think about a fey fairy, is it? Didn’t that tiny printing on one website say that iron is supposed to be bad for them or something? 

But hands aren’t bad, are they? Robbie’s fingers want to massage. To squeeze and rub until James’ muscles start to relax. To stray up above the stiff collar to James’ soft skin and bristly hair. 

And there go his thoughts wandering again, the way they always do when he puts his hands on James. He pulls his hand away and tries again. “Look, James. No need to be upset by what a bunch of strangers say. I just wish—” 

James pulls the car over into a passing place with such ferocity that gravel spurts from under the tires. Turns the lights off and the engine off and climbs out without a word. Stomps, tall and stiff, out into the field a ways and stands, head tilted back to the sky. 

Robbie climbs out of the car and closes the door gently. 

It’s so quiet out here. No noise of a bustling city. No voices, or cars, or bells. Just the soft rustle of wind in the trees, and the singing of insects in the grass, and the musical twinkle of stars. 

The sun’s completely gone now, and the moon’s just peaking over the distant trees. The sky is sparkling full of stars. In the pale, silver light, James looks otherworldly. Fey and beautiful and strange. The moonlight reflects off his pale skin and sparkly hair like he’s made of crystal. 

Robbie picks his way over the rough ground, stands silent beside James in the cool night breeze. 

He wants so badly to see James regain that easy slouch. “It doesn’t matter what anybody says,” he says quietly. “We’re always okay, yeah?” 

And he puts his hand gently on James’ back. 

It doesn’t seem possible, but James goes even stiffer and taller. He whispers something. 

The words are too low for Robbie to hear. Another problem. James can’t tell when he’s talking too loud. And he can’t tell when he’s whispering too low. 

Robbie leans closer, fingers flexing against the heat he can feel through James’ coat. 

“...me right now,” James is saying. “Not if you don’t mean it.” 

Robbie has no idea what he means, but James turns and looks at him, and his eyes are silvery blue in the moonlight, and Robbie feels like he’s slipping into them. Like he’s falling. His breath catches in his throat. 

And suddenly James is all over him. 

Arm crushing him close, and fingers slipping beneath his collar to stroke his throat. Mouth on his face, his jaw. His lips. Stealing his breath, just like the fairies do in children’s bedtime stories. Only there’s nothing childlike about the hardness James is pressing against him, or the way his body is responding to it. 

And he can’t say he hasn’t thought about it, but what he saw in his head can’t compare to this. The rough, light, teasing, grasping, stroking of James’ hands on his body. The way everywhere James touches him lights up until he feels like his skin is a reflection of the night sky, alight and burning with twinkling stars. 

James looms above him, lean and pale and beautiful in the moonlight. And he can’t remember how he got there, on his back, on the ground, with the crackling of crushed grass and the scent of James all around him. James moving on him. But then, James is magical, isn’t he? Fey. 

It’s like nothing he ever felt. Ever imagined. James sliding down on him. James’ body taking him in, hot as sunlight, hard and tight. Smooth, warm skin under his hands. Muscles rippling. James’ fingertips painting cool, dazzling patterns on his skin. 

Robbie loses touch with everything but ecstasy and starlight. He’s lost in a place where time moves differently. Inside James. In James’ other world. 

James is moonlight and bliss as he says, “Robbie...” 

A whisper he can hear. His name, whispered in shining silver. The catch of pleasure in James’ voice. Completion. 

And his body falls into the sky and his mind spins away, wheeling and whirling among the stars. Tethered to the real world by only one thing...the quicksilver of James’ voice, twining through his heartbeat. 

When his mind settles back down into his body, he’s lying on his back, gloriously spent and sated though his skin still tingles as though starlight is shivering underneath it. 

He’s staring up at the sky. Only moments ago, he was one of those stars. A flare of white, sparkling heat burning in the night air. 

Their clothing is crushed underneath him, a lumpy bed of wool and buttons and cold zippers. He grins as he thinks how they’re going to look returning home, suits rumpled and weed stained. The odd sliver of dead grass clinging to a seam. There’ll probably be a sock or two or a tie missing. He seems to remember pieces of clothing being discarded willy nilly into the dark. 

Not that he’s in any hurry to leave this magical field. 

Dew is ghosting down on his face and his knees. He’s cool all down one side and warm as toast on the other where James is lying against him. And it’s been a long, long time—years—since he was this happy. 

James hears his sigh, and he raises up to look at him. James’ eyes look like some wild, fey creature’s in the starlight. “You okay?” he says a little too loudly. 

Robbie nods. Traces a finger along James’ arm, up to his shoulder, and watches the pale shiver that follows in its wake. “So, you want to tell me why that just happened?” 

But James doesn’t quite hear him, so he has to repeat it. 

When he finally understands, James flushes and looks away. 

Robbie taps him, questioning in that shorthand sign language they’ve established in only a day and a half. 

But James won’t meet his gaze. Like he’s afraid of what he’ll see there. 

“I’m not complaining,” Robbie says, making sure it’s loud enough that James can hear. “That was...” He searches for the right word and can’t find it. “Way beyond anything I ever saw in me fantasies.” 

And that does the trick. 

James looks at him. “You’ve thought about it before? Fantasized about us?” 

“Well, of course, I have,” Robbie says, a bit embarrassed but determined not to be. 

And apparently, he said it right, because James slides back down, fits his head to Robbie’s shoulder. James’ cheek is hot, flushed with pleasure, against his skin. 

Robbie pinches James lightly on the tip of his ear. “Stop pretending you didn’t hear me. Why now?”

“You touched me,” James mumbles. 

“I touch you all the time. You never waylaid me in a meadow before.” 

James grins against his shoulder, muffles a sound of amusement. 

It takes Robbie a minute to figure out what he’s said, but then the pun finally comes through. Oh. Laid. Way _laid_. 

By then, James has figured out what he wants to say, and he’s talking. “I know you’ve known about me all along. But with those people in the village being so blunt... I was afraid you’d be annoyed that I never just told you outright. But then you said it doesn’t matter that I’m gay. And you—”

“Wait. I said it didn’t matter that you’re gay?” 

“Well, no...” James concentrates, as if his mind has been scattered among the stars, too. “You said... You said you didn’t care what anyone said.” 

James sits up, and he’s frowning. “I told you not to touch me right then if you didn’t mean it, and you stroked my back.” He leans close to peer into Robbie’s face.

Robbie knows that the only expression James can see is puzzlement. Is himself trying to figure out whose brain has gone soft, his own or James’. 

“They were whispering that I’m gay. And you said you didn’t care.” James enunciates it carefully, like he’s explaining something to a child, still in that just-a-bit-too-loud voice. “And then you touched me.” 

Robbie can’t hide the comprehension that rocks through him. 

James sits up even straighter, spine stiffening like he’s bracing for a blow. “What?” 

“They weren’t saying you were _gay_ , you daft, hearing impaired sod,” he says affectionately. “They were saying ‘fey.’ _Fey_.” 

James mouth drops open. Comprehension racing across his long, fey face. 

Laughter starts somewhere near the base of Robbie’s spine and spirals up and out. 

The uncertainty on James’ face gives way to a rueful grin. “Fey...” he says. “Well, Sir, now that you mention it... I have been meaning to talk to you about that.” 

Robbie reaches up, pulls James down for a kiss made of smiles and sighs. Settles James back into the hollow on his shoulder where that big head fits just perfectly. 

He looks up at the sky. Living in the city, with all the light pollution, he forgets how bright and beautiful and full of stars the sky can be. But he’ll never forget again. This otherworldly night is imprinted, in his mind, his memory, his senses. Tattooed in sparkling starlight on his skin. 

_Gay_. Now that’s a word he doesn’t need to look up on his phone. James has begun his education on that one quite nicely. 

And Robbie would swear his laughter is making the stars twinkle brighter. 

###


End file.
